India’s smartphone market shipped 32 million smartphones in 1Q25, with a 5.5% decline YoY (year-over-year), making it the second consecutive quarter of decline in shipments. Weak consumer demand and surplus inventory from the previous quarter continue to pose challenges. Apple registered the highest YoY growth of 23% amongst the Top 5 brands, shipping a first-quarter record of three million units in 1Q25. iPhone 16 was the highest shipped model, accounting for 4% of overall India shipments during the quarter.
“The first two months of the year saw fewer launches with brands focusing on offering retail support, discounts and price drops on older models to clear inventory. However, new launches picked up in March across price segments with enhanced marketing activities to drive demand,” said Aditya Rampal, senior market analyst, Devices Research, IDC Asia Pacific.
ASPs (average selling price) reached a record of US$274 in 1Q25, growing by 4% YoY. The mass-budget (US$100
29 million 5G smartphones were shipped in the quarter. The share of 5G smartphone shipments increased to 88%, up from 69% in 1Q24, with ASPs declining by 11% YoY to US$300. Within 5G, the share of the low-end (sub- US$100) segment reached 7% led by affordable new launches, while 45% of the shipments were still within the mass budget segment of (US$100
Qualcomm-based shipments grew by 40.8% YoY, at 31.8% share, led by affordable offerings like Xiaomi’s Redmi 14C, while MediaTek’s share declined to 43.6% from 55.3% on a shipment decline of 25.5% YoY in 1Q25.
Shipments to offline channels grew by 10% YoY and share increased to 58.1%, while online channel shipments declined by 21.1% in 1Q25. The share of online channels dropped to 41.9%, the lowest since 3Q19.
This was the result of an ongoing omnichannel strategy by almost all brands, spreading footprints into smaller towns/cities, offering attractive channel margins and support, which should remain in the upcoming quarters as well. vivo continued to lead in the offline channel, followed by OPPO and Samsung. Within the online channel, Samsung and Motorola held the first and second slot respectively, while realme went up to the third slot compared to previous quarter.
